A week after a high-profile send-up of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live," the NBC comedy show returned to making fun of the Alaskan governor in a skit where New York Times reporters sought to probe the possibility Palin's husband was having sex with the couple's own daughters.

"What about the husband?" asked a Times reporter during a mock assignment meeting for the paper. "You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska."

The assignment editor for the Times, portrayed by actor James Franco, responded: "He very well could be. Admittedly, there is no evidence of that, but on the other hand, there is no convincing evidence to the contrary. And these are just some of the lingering questions about Governor Palin."

The skit featured a photo of one reporter and an on-screen message that stated, "In 2009 [reporter] Howland Gwathmey Moss, V was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Times series on unproven, yet un-disproven incest in the Palin family. Sadly, he was to die 3 months later, run over by a snow machine, driven by a polar bear."

The final shot showed an image of a New York Times page, with headlines that included:

"While No Direct Evidence of Incest in Palin Family Emerges, Counter Evidence Remains Agonizingly Elusive" and "In a Small Alaska Town, Doubts Still Linger."

Reminds me of Ms. Burleigh who wants all women to put on knee pads for Bill Clinton in gratitude for keeping abortion legal [more detail at bottom of my profile]. Here are a few other links regarding media bias:

This kind of late night comedy has always been edgy and no holds barred. The skit actually poked fun at the effete NY “journalists.” There really was never an attempt to say the Palins were incestuous.

16
posted on 09/21/2008 1:17:59 AM PDT
by Yaelle
(It is amazing how many people mistake a certain hip snideness for sophistication. - Thomas Sowell)

Cool it, folks, and don't get your panties in a bunch. Whoever wrote this article got it 180 degrees wrong. That sketch was ridiculing the elitist, leftwing, wimpoid, Manhattan-centric, say-anything-about-the-Palins-and-to-hell-with-accuracy staff of the New York Times. It was the best thing SNL has done in ages. Conservatives need to stop being so paranoid that they don't even recognize when someone on TV agrees with them. Here is a post I put on an earlier thread about Al Franken that describes what the sketch was really like:

The opening sketch was weak and one-sided, which I'd expect of anything written by Franken. But I have to admit, they had a great sketch later, in which the editor of the NY Times called in 30 reporters who were being assigned to go to Alaska and dig up dirt on Sarah Palin. None of them had ever been anywhere except Manhattan, so they called in someone who'd worked in Alaska to answer questions. They were all things like, "I need access to at least two qualified psychiatrists" or "I'm a pre-operative transsexual; are there any gender-reassignment clinics in Alaska?" They were asked to identify pictures of things like a snowmobile ("Is it some sort of Baptizing machine?"). Gradually, they all fled in horror at the thought of being among normal Americans (several left when they found out Alaska doesn't have Thai food delivery).

The sketch ended with only three reporters going. We were informed with graphic cards that one was eaten by a polar bear, one humorless feminist reporter sued an Alaska town for $70 million for sexual harassment after a school board member called her "sweetie," and the third won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative story on unproven, yet not disproven, incest in the Palin family. They were all presented as incredibly arrogant, provincial, elitist snots without the slightest regard for the accuracy of their slanderous reporting.

Me to. If that’s true, the media has really stepped in it. If generally left-wing leaning shows are going to call out the press on this, the leftist gig (slam Palin 24/7) has certainly jumped the shark.

NBC and MSNBC are pathetic. I stopped watching Saturday Night Live over 10 years ago because it ceased to be funny. In fact it wasn't funny for the last 5 or 6 years that I watched. I just kept hoping it would improve but it never did. Tina Fey has to be one of the most overrated people in the entertainment business. She is completely unfunny and cruel at that. I'm not at all surprised that the current group on SNL would do something as despicable as the Palin skit. It's in the nature of the untalented to try to be cutting edge with this type of attempted humor. It's time to put this show out to pasture. It has run its course. I repeat NBC is pathetic.

I wonder what the reaction would be if anyone made jokes about Clinton doing Chelsea. Bill, not Hillary.;)

In no way do I mean to defend SNL's poor taste, but I do remember a skit in which Slick Willie and family (including a singularly unattractive "Chelsea") are watching a performance by (SNL guest) Madonna. Bill is obviously leering at Madonna, but Madonna singles out Chelsea as the object of her lewd intentions.

Whether the target was the Palin family or the liberal media, as I have heard on Law & Order reruns, "intent follows the bullet." The specific "joke" they used to poke fun at the media types was unacceptable, not edgy.

I suppose when they make light of the terrorist fist bump, that will prove me wrong. In the meantime, I won't hold my breath.

33
posted on 09/21/2008 1:49:32 AM PDT
by Bernard
(If you always tell the truth, you never have to remember exactly what you said.)

In the first Gulf War, SNL did a stupid press skit about the press covering the war. A general came out for a press conference, and warned that since there were ongoing operations, he couldn’t answer all questions, and laid the ground rules for what he could answer. The press then completely ignored the rules, and kept asking more and more ridiculous questions that would obviously endanger troops. The most over the top question was when a nervous Arab looking reporter in a foreign accent asked what frequencies the US pilots were using and what passwords they had.

I just watched my recording of the segment in question. This was without a doubt the most vicious slam on the media I have ever seen. The New York Times staff was the butt of this skit, and it touched all the bases and them some.

When this hits YouTube, I urge folks to watch it. Man, this couldn’t have been better if we would have collaborated here on FR to make it as in touch with reality as it could be.

I can’t remember it all now, but here are a few highlights.

1. Editor plans to send 50 reporters off to Alaska to dig dirt on Palin
2. Female reporter responds, what I’d like to know is if she is a member of a golf club that won’t admit women. “Oh nevermind...”
3. Male reporter going through a sex change process wants to know if Sarah’s husband is doing their girls. Editor encourages him even if there is no proof, because there’s no proof he isn’t. (At end of skit, this guy gets a pulitzer, for doing the full blown story on this topic with the conclusion they can’t prove he is, but they can’t prove he isn’t.)
4. Reporters are asked how they intend to get around Alaska. When one person says they plan on using a taxi, all are asked who plans to use that method. All raise their hands. They are asked if they know how to drive a stick. Nobody raises their hand. Asked if they have a license, nobody raises their hand.
5. All the reporters have never left New York City.
6. The expert on Alaska says it’s a huge place, and some reporter responds, “Have you ever seen Queens?”
7. One shrew reporterette is described as determined to file a sex discrimination suite at the drop of a hat, has done it to the editor three times. By the end of the show she is revealed to have filed a suit in Alask for $70 million and won, because someone addressed her as sweetie.
8. All but three reporters bail on going to Alaska for various reasons, one being that they don’t have Thai takeout.

Seriously folks, this could have been produced by FR, it was that good.

I thought of that same sketch as I was watching this one. I couldn't believe they were so dead on in skewering the media, in this case, the NY Times specifically.

And for the people who think incest is just beyond the pale as a topic, there was never any suggestion that there was incest in the Palin family for real. It's BECAUSE incest is the worst thing you can accuse someone of, particularly when you have no evidence or even a suggestion that it's true, that they chose it as the thing the NY Times accused the Palins of. They were being outrageous to satirize the outrageous bias and lies of the NY Times, not to attack the Palins. They showed the reporters just making the charge up out of thin air. Watch the sketch before you leap to conclusions. It will probably be on NBC.com if it isn't already. Once you see how they portrayed the NY Slimes reporters, maybe you'll understand that they were on our side with this one. And the punchline of the reporter winning a Pulitzer Prize for an obviously unsupported slanderous lie about a Republican was the perfect capper.

The assignment editor for the Times, portrayed by actor James Franco, responded: "He very well could be. Admittedly, there is no evidence of that, but on the other hand, there is no convincing evidence to the contrary. And these are just some of the lingering questions about Governor Palin."

..I also think it’s not a commentary on the Palins..etc..
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
From what I have ‘seen’ here etc I agree with you.
My only ‘question’ is: “When will we see the same type skit with BO or for that matter ANY Black or Middle Easterner being the ‘star’?”
The only “SAFE” target for personal assault satire is your average White Christian Male... Conservative/Republican/Female also ‘fair game’, race not withstanding...

39
posted on 09/21/2008 2:18:01 AM PDT
by xrmusn
( True gun control is hitting what you aim at.)

*AHEM* 'Decent' voters stopped watching SNL about two years into Clinton's first term. That show should have been put out to pasture when Bob Dole was still in office and Algore was 'inventing' the Internet. I think I've tuned in once in the last decade (insomnia got the better of me, my Internet connection was down, and my wife was out of town).

40
posted on 09/21/2008 2:23:23 AM PDT
by Viking2002
(A man who never quits is never defeated.)

Guys, read the comments and descriptions above. This was a satire of the NEWS MEDIA, and a very good one, it seems. The question was supposed to be something that your average transgendered, never been out of Manhattan news reporter might ask, not the opinion of SNL on Palin.

No, the SNL sketch just used it as an example of something the NY Times would likely concoct. The paper didn’t really report that. Although if such a charge appeared on Daily Kos, it will likely show up in the Times within three days.

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